Samin Nosrat:
Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, what would it be like if I didn't torture myself for the whole first part of the thing?" Like the majority of it, what would life feel like. Is that what enlightened people feel like?
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, and we are broadcasting from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. For today's show, we're dipping into the archives for a special recording from our last in-person Jubilee Conference. It features Samin Nosrat of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat in conversation with Helen Rosner of The New Yorker. Introducing them is Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille. Speaking of Jubilee, we'll have news later this week about our Jubilee 2022 Conference. If you're a ticket holder and or subscribe to our newsletter, keep an eye on your inbox. If you're not a newsletter subscriber, you can become one at cherrybombe.com.
Today's episode is sponsored by Zwilling, the renowned kitchenware brand known for its quality and dependability. Zwilling is celebrating its 290th birthday right now. Imagine being around that long, and they've got a birthday gift for some of you. Zwilling is giving away 290 of its famous chef knives, and you can enter the sweepstakes at Zwilling.com/US. Good luck, and keep those knives sharp. Remember, no dull blades.
Our other sponsor for today's show is Sequoia Grove Winery. I first learned about Sequoia Grove a few years ago, when I met Molly Hill, the Sequoia Grove winemaker. Molly told me all about the family-owned winery, its beautiful Napa Valley vineyards, and the world-class wines they craft with love and intention. My favorite is Sequoia Grove's Cabernet Sauvignon. The dark ruby color is unmistakable and the aromas of fruit and spice are rich, warm, and delightful. If you are going to be in Napa Valley, you can actually stop by Sequoia Grove for a wine tasting. That sounds fab, doesn't it? Or you can enjoy a multi-course Sequoia Grove Terroir Tasting wine dinner, prepared by Sequoia Grove chef, Britny Maureze. The trip there, and one of those dinners, is definitely on my bucket list. To learn more about Sequoia Grove, visit sequoiagrove.com. And ask for Sequoia Grove at your favorite wine shop or look for it on your favorite delivery service.
Here's Aran Goyoaga introducing Samin and Helen from our last Jubilee Conference in Brooklyn.
Aran Goyoaga:
My name is Aran Goyoaga and I have never taken Valium, but until about a minute ago, I was about to go score some. My heart is about to pump out of my chest and I am terrified to speak in public. Somehow I always cry when I talk about the things that matter something to me, which these two women do. So besides that little embarrassing fact, you might know my work from my blog, Cannelle et Vanille. If anybody is an old-school blogger. I'm also a cookbook author. My new book is coming out in September. I'm a food stylist and a photographer.
Another character and career-defining aspect about myself is that I am an immigrant. I am originally from the Basque Country in Northern Spain, from a large family of pastry chefs and cooks. This small fact has been the push and pull of my existence, and what informs so much of what I do and how I experience the world. When people ask me what my work is about, I always say, "Well, I am a gluten free cook. I am driven by recipes that are nourishing, balanced, and I am extremely driven by poetic imagery to accompany them all." True. I am moved by all of that. But I think at the core of what drives me these days, is a need to define myself in the context of the current world. Because ultimately food is politics, as I learned from my family early on.
My grandparents' pastry shop was a revolving door of writers, radicals, priests, farmers, or even postmen. Everyone was welcome, everyone had something to say. Conversations and the inevitable arguments happened. I am not here to talk to you about politics, per se, but I am very interested in the subtle power of cooking for others as a way to establish values in society. Who we give voice at our table, how we shop, how we waste, what we put into our bodies and how we feel when we eat, converse, and ultimately reveal ourselves at the most intimate level. This is what drives me today, even if I might not see my parent from my Instagram feed.
I want to slay notions of beautiful, perfect lives. Ideas of having to brand yourself to sell something, or to fake it until you make it. I hate fake it to you make it. I want to stay an apprentice, I want to honor those I learned from and those who will come after me. I want my work to have value, vulnerability, inclusiveness, and I want to seek answers to the larger questions of life. Always around a table.
Now, Samin. Who doesn't love Samin? Come on! When I open Samin's Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, the first thing I feel is joy. Here is this enormous book filled with science and facts, which I know took so long to write. They said simplify it, organize, yet feels playful with Wendy MacNaughton's colorful illustrations. I think that speaks volumes as Samin's kind and child-like personality. On her Netflix show, when her Japanese host laments that the rice balls are not perfect, Samin replies, "The thing I love is wabi sabi, that handmade quality that makes it human." She reveals herself with all the quirks and imperfections, and that feels refreshing in today's world, and a joy. And she's clearly a champion for underrepresented women all over the world. In spite all of her success, Samin has been open about her struggles with depression, or the imposter syndrome she was riddled with when she started working as a food writer. I love how Samin has always honored those who taught her how to cook. Yes, they taught her technique but she brilliantly processed that technique in her brain to give her one of the most revered cooks in the last couple of years. Thank you, Samin.
Oh Helen. Helen and I went fishing in Alaska a few years ago. Helen's stories have a very political undercurrent, even when she writes about Olive Garden or chicken nuggets. Her New Yorker story titled The Passionate, Progressive Politics of Julia Child clearly shows where her heart is. If you follow her on Twitter, you know she gets trolled by mostly dudes who fear her very feminist stance, and Helen bites back. And for this, I admire these two women who are about to take the stage. Both of them live and work following those principles of curiosity, of inclusiveness, of the importance of being humble in your work. And ultimately their work shapes the values in our cooking community and industry. What these women have accomplished on their own is remarkable, and I ask you to give them a heartfelt welcome. Without further ado, our keynote speakers, and some of the most influential women today, Samin Nosrat and Helen Rosner.
Helen Rosner:
Hey y'all.
Samin Nosrat:
Hey. Hello.
Helen Rosner:
Oh wow. They told us the mics were loud, they were not kidding. Can you all hear us? Yeah? Wait, you get a pillow.
Samin Nosrat:
There's one there.
Helen Rosner:
Oh my God, I get one too. Cool.
Samin Nosrat:
Lumbar support.
Helen Rosner:
Hi everyone. Thank you, and for that gorgeous introduction. That was so lovely. It's such an honor to be introduced by you and to share the stage with Samin. You've lost your last name, I think, in the last couple of months. You've gone full Cher, Beyonce, Madonna.
Samin Nosrat:
It's been replaced by an exclamation point.
Helen Rosner:
Samin! Have you trademarked your name yet?
Samin Nosrat:
Wait, do you need to trademark your name?
Helen Rosner:
Yeah, or else someone else can just show and be Samin.
Samin Nosrat:
Okay. I'll get on it.
Helen Rosner:
Call your people. I'm so excited to be here with you today at the Cherry Bombe Jubilee, talking in front of this crowd of extraordinary people with Samin, exclamation point, one of the most extraordinary people in the food word ever really. It's a pantheon that is fairly discriminating and you're in there. You did it, kid.
Samin Nosrat:
Thanks.
Helen Rosner:
Well done.
Samin Nosrat:
It feels weird.
Helen Rosner:
How's it feel? Yeah.
Samin Nosrat:
It doesn't feel real. It doesn't... yeah, it feels really weird. I protect myself from a lot of it, so I think in a lot of ways I don't actually understand beyond the individual interactions that I have with people. I don't really understand the bigger picture stuff. I'm a little bit afraid to try to understand it, because I feel like it would be too hard for me to then be a regular human who goes to therapy and deals with my... How do you think about yourself as a thing? When you're just a flawed human. I don't really know. So right now I'm just avoiding.
Helen Rosner:
At this conference last year, you were in my chair, right? You were interviewing Nigella Lawson, and one of the things that you guys talked about... it was incredible conversation, but among other things you talked about the strangeness of fame. And particularly being a woman who cooks in public, let's say. Right? The oddity that surrounds being a women in public in general, the additional layers of maternalism, of sexualization, of physical attractiveness, of de sexualization that gets layered on top of that. And shortly after that, you became an explosive overnight television star.
Samin Nosrat:
A bit weird.
Helen Rosner:
How do you wear that? I mean to quote something who Tweeted at me about our conversation tonight, I think I agree with this, you are an object of thirst now.
Samin Nosrat:
Oh. Well, last week you sent me-
Helen Rosner:
Oh that.
Samin Nosrat:
... I was on an airplane, and when I landed and turned on my phone, I got this text from Helen and it said, "Allow me to be the 50th person to send you this." And it was a Tweet, it was Nicole Cliffe.
Helen Rosner:
Nicole Cliffe wanted to set you up with Chris Evans.
Samin Nosrat:
And I was like, "Who's Chris Evans?"
Helen Rosner:
But I mean, this is the national discourse. Is there is a significant percentage of the American population that ships you and Captain America.
Samin Nosrat:
Yeah, which is hilarious. Yeah.
Helen Rosner:
How does that feel? How do you wear that skin?
Samin Nosrat:
I don't know that I think about that part of it. What I am able to process and have to think about and figure out how to deal with, because it's a part of my every day reality now, is that people feel like they really know me. Because on screen I was me. And I think when you watch Chris Evans on screen, and you see him on the street, you don't think he's a superhero. You think he's a human who has a lot of money or something. I don't know. I don't know what you think about him, but you don't feel like you know him. And with me, people really feel like they know me. And in general, I will say the interactions that I have and what's come at me has been overwhelmingly positive. And it's amazing, but it's still a lot coming at me. And I'm also a person who is grumpy and goes to therapy and doesn't do my laundry enough, or whatever.
Samin Nosrat:
I'm just a person still, and all of a sudden I'm also something that means a lot to people, that isn't me. Like a puppet of me or something. So I'm trying to reconcile what that means, and in a lot of ways I'm mourning the loss of my anonymity. And that's a really sad thing to lose. And also, there's a lot of power, really awesome power that comes with this that I'm starting to realize the extent of.
Samin Nosrat:
You know, with the kosher salt thing? That happened in January. Evan Kleiman from Good Food emailed me and she was like, "Did you see?" And she linked to this Tweet on Twitter saying that Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, which is my favorite salt that I recommend to people, was no longer going to be produced in these three pound boxes. And I was like, "Really? That doesn't seem... That seems crazy." Why would they just cancel this? And maybe they're just changing the packaging. And she's like, "No. No. This person called and checked." And I was like, "Well, I'm going to call and check."
Samin Nosrat:
It was the weekend, so I was like, "I'll call and check on Monday." And then Evan text... she sent me a note. She just had a response for everything, so then I started to get worried. So on Sunday morning, I went and wrote, "Why Diamond Crystal? Why?" That was the whole Tweet. And then the whole Twitter panicked and bought all the salt on Amazon, and it sold out. And then I got texts from people who had walked 10 blocks in the snow to buy 10 boxes, and I heard Chrissy Teigen bought two cases of salt.
Helen Rosner:
People were posting pictures of their shipping flats of salt, that they were hoarding for the salt apocalypse.
Samin Nosrat:
And I had taken Twitter off my phone, and I was on vacation. And so I closed my computer and I left for the day. And when I came back nine hours later, my agent had texted me and said, "Oh thank God salt gate is over." And I was like, "Salt gate?" I was like, "All I did was send one Tweet." And Cargill, which owns Diamond Crystal had responded and said, "Don't worry. That was a rumor of vicious lies." And then the next day, The New York Times ran a whole article about it. I was like, "You guys really have nothing else to report on?"
Helen Rosner:
You're the news.
Samin Nosrat:
It's really bananas. And that's a very weird thing to understand. But also, there's so many good ways that it's showed up. Like the soy sauce from the show sold out globally in 24 hours. And that's a guy who's on the verge of going out of business. And the women honey beekeepers from Mexico, the indigenous women, they I was particularly concerned about them, and wanted to make sure that they profited in some way economically from our being there. And it was really hard to do that because they just work with this dinky little non-profit. So I hired someone to try and figure out how to set up some sort of website to sell their honey. Because I knew people would want it, and we couldn't do it in time for the launch of the show.
Samin Nosrat:
So we did get a donate button up, and some people have donated money. And then one of the viewers just randomly emailed me. He went down there. He is setting up a Fair Trade type organization to work with them, and import their honey and sell it in the States. And I have my spidey people are watching him to make sure he doesn't take advantage of them. But it just to see that I sort of did this thing and then it has this ripple effect, and it can be a positive one, makes me really excited. And allows me to start thinking bigger about what else I can do.
Helen Rosner:
It seems that one of the threads running through Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, the show, and you've talked about this a lot in the course of promoting the show and giving interviews, has been what I would maybe describe as your sense of stewardship. That being put in the position of being at the center of what is a massive multimedia ecosystem, it's been really important to you to not be the only person to whom all things flow. So how do you, besides having all sorts of folks on the ground and building websites like that, how do you build that in from the beginning? To the work that you do?
Samin Nosrat:
Well, I'm starting a company now and I just hired my first two people. All three of us are immigrant children. So that's pretty exciting. And we're reckoning with and wrestling with those questions right now of how do we build it? We don't even actually know what it is that we're going to do. But as we figure out, and as we respond to opportunities, how do we make sure that these things that are so important to me remain central? And so, did you watch Period. End Of Sentence? Did you guys watch that? The documentary. It's so good.
It's on Netflix, it's 24 minutes long. And it's the short docs that won the Oscar, and it was made by all these teenagers in L.A. The director was a 24 year old Persian woman. And they basically these girls at the school found out, they learned at some point about how in India a lot of girls don't have access to pads, to sanitary pads, and so they have to use cotton when they get their period, which then leads to shaming at school. Which then leads to them dropping out of school, which then leads to this repetitive, never-ending cycle of women never being educated, and never being able to lift themselves out of poverty and get any jobs of any substance.
And so, the documentary was about this man who, I don't know if he's a doctor, engineer, and he invented something called the low-cost pad machine. Which is just like this little thing that chops up cotton, and then you put it in this little thing and it stamps it into a pad. And so they have these low-cost pads that now they can sell to village women for really, really cheap, and it has the added bonus of also employing women to make the pads. So now there's two sources of furthering opportunity for these women. And I'm sitting there on the couch weeping. I'm like, "This is amazing. All I want to do is something like this."
And so, now I realize, "Oh I can." And where do those opportunities come from? So a friend of mine is from Columbia and her dad was telling me that he wants to take me down to meet the women who make the Chamba pots. You know those chunky, black ceramic pots that are so beautiful? And they sell them at Williams Sonoma and stuff. And I was like, "Oh cool. What if I could use now this platform that I have." Because if I go down there and do an episode, and make Chamba pot, like cook in Chamba pots. Then the next day everyone's going to want to buy Chamba pots. So how do I use this stuff to both tell the beautiful and compelling stories, and bring some sort of economic change, positive change to people. Particularly rural woman around the world.
So I'm trying to figure out is there a business plan that will not kill me? And some sort of thing that I can do. Because I also, since day one, have been really clear that I don't want my face on pots and pans. I don't want to just make stuff that's made in China and ends up in the landfill. So how do we both support people who make things by hand? And also not sell junk, and be accessible? I don't know. These are puzzles. But now I get to work on them, which is exciting.
Helen Rosner:
Yeah, no. They're really great problems to have.
Samin Nosrat:
Totally.
Helen Rosner:
If you're going to have problems, "How can I make the most people's lives as good as possible?" is a really great problem. Congratulations.
Samin Nosrat:
Is really awesome. Thanks.
Helen Rosner:
You and I when we've talked before also you've mentioned your interest in things like producing documentaries and helping elevate other voices. And the opposite of gatekeeping, like gate opening.
Samin Nosrat:
Yeah. We were just talking about this back there.
Helen Rosner:
Yeah. And that seems to me like such a graceful place to arrive, so soon after arriving at your own massive celebrity. Did you know that this was going to be the path?
Samin Nosrat:
I think I did, and I think I've had a lot of really good role models, who have set this example for me. I mean, one of them... so I'm immigrant kid, I was my parents are very, I would say scarcity minded. Which is pretty typical immigrant mentality. And I was very much immersed in that, and a lot of that's just white supremacy. There was another Iranian girl who showed up in my elementary school, and I did everything I could to sabotage her. I'm very ashamed of this, sorry. I was like, "No. There's only room for one of us." And so I have fully been driven by that. And it's not fun to be driven by that. It's anti-feminist, it's anti... It's racist. It's just really fucked up.
And I remember when I started writing, I took a class at the Journalism School at Berkley with Michael Pollan. And one of the people in my class, this writer Malia Wollan, even though she was still in J-School, she was already writing for The New York Times. Which was all I ever wanted, was one day to make it to The New York Times. And I asked her, I worked up my courage and I said, "Oh, how did that happen? Do you think you could help me?" And I thought she would be like, "Oh no. You need to do this, this and this before I'll connect you with anyone." And she was like, "Of course. Of course I will connect you to anyone." And I just remember, she didn't know me. We had never talked before and I went and asked her for this thing. And it just sat with me, and it felt so powerful that she was so secure in her own thing that sharing a resource with me didn't threaten her at all.
And we're really good friends now. And years later, I asked her. I was like, "Do you remember that you did this thing?" I said, "Why did you do that?" And she was like, "It's not my decision to make." She's like, "If my editor doesn't want to respond to you, they won't respond to you. But I don't need to be another barrier in your way on your journey." And I love that, because I've always since then tried to practice that. And that's not to say that I don't get the stab of jealousy or the "It's mine. I don't want to share." I get that all the time, but I just have talk myself through it and be like, "Okay, there's enough for all of us." And also, so what if there's two people on Netflix? So what if there's 20 people on Netflix. Then there's more of us.
And also, the way the Netflix algorithm works is when you watch somebody else's, it'll tell you to watch mine. It's better for all of us, you know? And so what? All those things. I don't want to be remembered as the person who got in the way of other people's dreams. So I pretty much will help somebody along.
And often that sometimes means, like recently somebody I really love wrote to me and said, "Oh, will you introduce me to your Netflix producers?" And I was like, "Of course I will. But tell me what your idea is?" And so she told me, and I was like, "You haven't done enough work for them to respond to you. They're really busy people who we have to imagine them getting a thousand emails a day and checking the phone on the toilet. And if they're going to have 30 seconds, then the email you send has to be very powerful. So right now, what you're telling me in this email chain is not even remotely there. So what you need to do is... I mean, if you want, I'll give you their email address. But if you want the better chance at getting their attention, then you need to go do these 10 things," and all of that.
So I'm trying. I'm trying to figure out how to be that person, but I also have no interest in being only the only brown girl on the stage, or the only brown girl in the room. And since when I look around there, let's say the room is not filled with the browns. Not this room necessarily, but rooms in general. I have to help create that pathway for not the regular, narrow group of people who have made it to the front.
Helen Rosner:
Yeah. It seems like this conversation has really been picking up momentum, especially in the last year or two. Just a couple of weeks ago, Kwame Onwuachi, the DC Chef whose memoir just came out, which is great, you should all read it. It's called Notes From A Young Black Chef. Gave a terrific interview to Eater, where he talked about how debilitating it can be to the careers of young people of color in the food world, the whole idea of dues paying. And that you have to reach a certain point in order to deserve success.
Samin Nosrat:
Yeah.
Helen Rosner:
It's like you have thoughts about it.
Samin Nosrat:
I'm very familiar.
Helen Rosner:
And it seems like we're at a tipping point, I don't know. I want to be really excited, but I also want to reserve my excitement because it feels so often like there are steps forward and then there are people who shriek loudly to hold everything back. I feel like the energy is here, right? The energy is here. The energy is in rooms like this room. The energy is in group texts and in Slack rooms. social media itself is difficult and complicated.
Samin Nosrat:
It's really complicated. It's very funny, because Netflix has assigned me a really wonderful social media person. And literally every correspondence we have, she's like, "You're not posting enough." She's like, "You need to do more." And I'm like, "I'm trying my best, okay?" But I have a really complicated relationship to it because well, I've been traveling a lot. So I don't actually cook a lot, and what performs the best is food pictures. But I don't actually have any food pictures, because a lot of times I just eat a bowl of cereal, or like Annie's Mac and Cheese, or something. I mean, which I guess I could post that, but then the light's not good and I don't like artificial light for an Instagram.
Helen Rosner:
It's very hashtag relatable, you know?
Samin Nosrat:
Totally. I'm like, "What do you do?" And then I don't know. And I'm trying to be a person who's less on my phone. And also it's a really joyful way to communicate with people. And the best is when people send me pictures of their kids cooking, or their kids watching the show. I mean, there's an amazing one someone sent the other day of their kids before school, were just sitting in front of the TV like this, watching it for the 1,000th time. And so there's a lot of goodness and joy. Also, I met Antoni through Instagram, guys.
Helen Rosner:
Wow. Was that like?
Samin Nosrat:
Oh, I mean not in person, but we're Instagram friends. I actually texted him today because someone sent me a picture of a shirt that was made with my name on it. Is that here somewhere? Yeah, so I sent him that, and he said if you give him one he'll wear it on the show. Yeah. Yeah.
Helen Rosner:
That is so cool. Wait, what does your shirt say? Can you stand up again?
Samin Nosrat:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh not.
Helen Rosner:
That's amazing.
Samin Nosrat:
It's awesome, yeah. Because you know he wears those shirts that are like the... yeah. So awesome.
Helen Rosner:
Yeah. Salt, Fat and Acid and Heat?
Samin Nosrat:
No, its...
Helen Rosner:
Wait.
Samin Nosrat:
Stand up. Come up here, come up here.
Helen Rosner:
Stand up again.
Samin Nosrat:
Yeah.
Helen Rosner:
Padma & Missy & Samin & Ruth. Those are amazing shirts. Oh my God. Phenomenal. Yeah, we've got to get one to Antoni.
Samin Nosrat:
So awesome, yeah.
Helen Rosner:
Wow. Okay. So how does this affect your life as a writer?
Samin Nosrat:
Oh, I'm a terrible writer. I'm really bad. I'm so behind on something right now, and basically every 20 minutes that I have, I'm trying to work on it. I feel like I don't have... although, I will say this. When I first started working on the book, I applied for all these writing residencies, because in my head I was like, "Oh, real writers have a magical cabin in the woods where they write their book." And so I got three writing residencies, and I went. And I did get a lot of work done, but the place where I got the most work done was my jank-a-doodle office in downtown Oakland that cost $80 a month, where the paint is peeling and homeless people are peeing across the street. There's no... nothing magical about that, because writing isn't magic. It's just sitting at your desk and doing it.
I mean, you know this more than anyone. It's like the worst thing in the world, that you just have to sit there and block yourself off the internet and try and do it. So, what's been good is that even at least I went through the horror of writing one, and then right after that I started writing a column. And then right when the column started, I had to start traveling for the show. So I've been writing the column almost entirely on the road. And it takes a lot of time. And I have done it in the most remote and weird and unpicturesque places that don't even have an internet connection. And I still get it done, and I still am able to turn it in. And that's built a lot of confidence for me, so that I'm learning, "Oh, it doesn't have to be perfect every time."
And that's the thing about writing as much as you do, or as much as I try to. Is everything you do isn't the best. Once in a while there's a hit, but you just have to keep going. The thing I'm about to turn in is really bad, and I'm feeling really bad. And I'm sorry, but I just have to get it done and turn it in.
Helen Rosner:
My editor always reminds me that not everything has to be a home run. It's okay to just hit a single, and sometimes it's okay to just walk.
Samin Nosrat:
Yeah, yeah.
Helen Rosner:
And then I start running out of baseball metaphors. But what I'm curious about, and this is a very serious question because I am constantly behind, and the thing that I don't know how to do and I should because theoretically this is my job. Is I don't know how to go from being a person who is not currently writing, to being a person who is currently writing. And by currently writing, I mean literally typing on a keyboard with words coming out into a document.
Samin Nosrat:
I don't know. Yesterday I saw a really good Tweet that was like, "Every writer ever, this snack is going to help me write. This snack is going to help me write. This book is going to help me write. This pen is going to help me write." It's like there's no... I wish I had an answer. I honestly am like, "How does Helen?" This is going to be a mutual admiration thing, because you have crazy, crazy quotas. The amount of stuff you have to do every week is really bananas. And I don't know how to do it, because to me it-
Helen Rosner:
I don't.
Samin Nosrat:
... 95% of what I do is procrastinate. And then 5% is do something bad and then turn it in.
Helen Rosner:
Yeah. I mean, it's mostly the same for me. I'm constantly behind, and then fear is a terrible motivator and very poor creative fuel. But somehow it happens.
Samin Nosrat:
Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, what would it be like if I didn't torture myself for the whole first part of the thing?" Like the majority of it, what would life feel like. Is that what enlightened people feel like?
Helen Rosner:
I have no idea. I mean... So when you sit down to do one of your columns, for example, do you know what it is when you sit down to write it?
Samin Nosrat:
Well, the way it works is that we have to turn in our recipe almost a month before, for it to be tested and shot. So I start by thinking about the food. And when I was getting, I guess interviewed or considered for the columns, Sam Sifton, our boss, our editor, dear leader, he emailed me and he was like, "I'm going to put you up for this column, but I just want you to know every single recipe has to be a winner." And he was like, "If you write about lamb shanks, I want the entire Eastern Seaboard sold out of lamb shanks that weekend." I was like, "Okay, no pressure."
So, for me what that means is I have to try and think of things that people will actually cook. And so that already limits, right? It means not super fancy or very expensive, or labor intensive or time intensive things. Unless, there's the one in a million very special thing. And then I think about things that maybe mean something to me, or maybe some sort of a dish that I've come across in my eating that is something that really delicious that I would love to tell. Or if there's a story.
So there's a lot of different things. Last year I had one that I wrote about chapli kebabs from Pakistan, which I had eaten way back when and have always thought about as a delicious thing. And then as I started thinking about it, I remembered that kebab is an ethnic slur. A religious slur against Muslims, and so then I was able to turn it into this more meditative thing about what it is to be a brown person in America. But it always starts with the food, and then what I've found is that almost always. Even when I least suspect it, there's a story somewhere. And so all I have to do is listen and ask, and usually people say the funniest, weirdest stuff. And that's what's the most charming.
Helen Rosner:
So how is this playing into the new book?
Samin Nosrat:
God.
Helen Rosner:
Can we talk about the new book?
Samin Nosrat:
Sure.
Helen Rosner:
Because it was announced just a couple of weeks ago-
Samin Nosrat:
Sure.
Helen Rosner:
... that you're going to be cooking, you and Wendy MacNaughton, your illustrator from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat are teaming up for round two. And it will be called What To Cook?
Samin Nosrat:
To Cook.
Helen Rosner:
Which coming from you feels a little prescriptive.
Samin Nosrat:
Oh yeah, but it's also like could be a question. What To Cook?
Helen Rosner:
Oh my goodness. So what to cook? What should we cook?
Samin Nosrat:
So I wasn't planning to sell a book this year. That was a mistake, accident. Due to somebody evil in here. You know who you are. But basically it started with a show, and Netflix, when they bought Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, they told me to think about what the next show would be. And they wanted me to think about something that could be evergreen and have an infinite number of episodes, and be a little less labor intensive, and time and cost intensive to shoot. So not involving travel, or international travel, and be in one fixed place.
So essentially, they were like, "We want you to think of your version of Julia Child's show, or like a stand and stir show." And I was like, "I will die. My soul will die if I have to do a stand and stir show, because that's not what I care about. What I care about is teaching people and learning and interacting with humans." And so, I was mulling this over for a long time, and one day I realized what I could do. Rather than showing up and saying, "Today we're going to make these three things," for some contrived, fake dinner party. What if I actually took the opportunity to look at real circumstances? Whether they were my real circumstances, or somebody else's real circumstances in cooking.
And just as a professional cook, I was taught to think about salt, fat, acid, and heat, of these four elements as my points on my compass, professional cooks are also... Chefs don't show up at work and be like, "What am I going to invent today?" I mean, at least not the chefs I know. You show up to your restaurant, and there's a real set of constraints involved, like time and who's coming to work today, and are they a very skilled cook? And what left-overs do we have that we have to use up? And those are mirrored in home kitchens, because your kid might be losing their mind, and you need to have dinner in 20 minutes.
Or I have a friend who has a baby and she has to cook one-handed, because her baby will not let her put her down. So what can you make with just one hand? Or another one is at Thanksgiving, I know people are always like, "How do I get everything in the oven?" And I'm like, "Okay, well your oven is your constraint. So how do we build a meal around our limited oven space?" So these limitations in cooking, they're true for everyone. So if I could teach you how to think your way through that, then that's how you get to a meal.
And so every episode could be a different scenario, whether it's from my life or someone who I visit. And then when I was telling my agent, she was like, "Well, that's a book too." And I was like, "I hate you." And then Netflix was like, "We don't want that show." So not yet. So it's not my next show, but it is going to be my next book. And the more I thought about it, I was like, "If this book, even more so this book should be illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton, because it's all about decision making." And that's what I want to teach you to do. The whole point of Salt, Fat, was to teach you to taste and to think your way through the kitchen without a recipe.
And so for this, I would like you to think your way through what you're going to do, and be confident in deciding what to do. And knowing how to execute your plan without having to be like, "Oh, but I don't have 42 cherry tomatoes," or whatever. But because of the way the whole brouhaha of selling a book happened, I am actually not writing that book yet. And I won't start writing it for probably a year, because I have to work on another show right now. So I'm still trying to figure out what that's going to be. My dream is carbs of the world. And so we're going to get into making that show this year. And then I also want to make a Edna Lewis documentary. I want to make... there are a million things I want to do.
So I am on the hook for a book, it's coming publisher, I promise. Just not in a year.
Helen Rosner:
In the meantime, we can buy the prints from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat?
Samin Nosrat:
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Helen Rosner:
Awesome.
Samin Nosrat:
We just released those beautiful prints.
Helen Rosner:
And we can just keep reading Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which is like an infinite and biblical text that always reveals things on every revisit.
Samin Nosrat:
Oh thanks. Oh.
Helen Rosner:
Samin, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Samin Nosrat:
Thank you so much.
Helen Rosner:
Thank you.
Samin Nosrat:
Thank you guys.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I hope you enjoy this trip into the archives. If you don't have a copy of Samin's cookbook, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, a real masterpiece in my opinion, pick one up at your local bookstore.
Aran's latest book, Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple, a new way to bake gluten free will be out this October. And, you can find Helen's work at The New Yorker, of which I am a proud and longtime subscriber.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our other shows with amazing food folks, like Ina Garten, Claire Saffitz and Padma Lakshmi. And sign up for our newsletter over at cherrybombe.com. Thank you to Sequoia Grove Winery and Zwilling for supporting today's episode. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine, and is recorded at Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center here in New York City. Our studio engineer is Joseph Hazan, and our assistant producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thanks for listening everybody, you're the bombe.
Harry from When Harry Met Sally:
I'll have what she's having.